


A Storm Coming Through

by ABookAndACoffee



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Anxiety, F/M, Post-ACOFAS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABookAndACoffee/pseuds/ABookAndACoffee
Summary: As soulmates who share emotions and sensations, Nesta and Cassian are forced to go to the Illyrian steppes together. The last thing Nesta wants to do is share herself, but she can't keep herself from knowing what Cassian feels.Nesta had swooned when she met Cassian - swooned, like a child, like a girl who had never in her days seen a man so handsome. It wasn’t until weeks later and conversations with Elain that she realized she’d met her soulmate, and that the force of his emotions, of his own realization of the same fact, had quite literally bowled her over.
Relationships: Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	A Storm Coming Through

Nesta pulled on the final strap that held her bags shut, securing all her possessions in the world to the side of a chestnut horse, sighing. 

She was used to exile by now. She was even used to Feyre being the cause. She just wasn’t used to going without Elain, or being accompanied entirely by fae. 

The sun hadn’t risen yet, though its rays had started to race across the sky. Nesta usually witnessed it from the other side, after a long night of drinking, stumbling home across Velaris, exhausted, sore, barely looking up as she made her way across the cobblestone sidewalks. If she were lucky she would fall into her own bed before the sun had risen entirely. 

But this morning, the morning of her exile, Nesta wasn’t going to sleep, and she wasn’t going home. As if there were such a place any longer. 

A chill fog turned the blue sky grey, despite the sun’s rays. The footmen and stableboys spoke in hushed voices around her, from fear of her or waking others. Perhaps both. Nesta didn’t bother making conversation, though she’d be traveling with them for days. She hated the disorienting feeling of winnowing, though she could do it. There was also little chance she would do so while carrying Cassian and their bags, or that she would allow him to carry her while he flew. So, horses it was.

Cassian walked into the courtyard and the fae around her snapped to attention. As the leader of this expedition and many others, the confident warrior who had and would lead them to victory many times over, the fear they displayed of Cassian was one rooted in respect. Not mistrust.

They would never fear Nesta in quite the same way, but instead look at her with sidelong glances, testing her with sneers, jabbing one another in the side and stifling jokes between them. At least they never dared say anything to her face, but Nesta wished they would, just to give her the chance to respond.

“I expect everyone to have prepared their belongings. We won’t be turning back once we depart.” Cassian’s deep voice echoed across the courtyard. The fae nodded in response, turning back to their work with quickened pace. He turned on his heel to check on his own horse, gravel crunching beneath his boots, without looking at her.

Behind a wall of tension, Nesta felt a mixture of anger, indignation, annoyance. Anger at what she was being made to do, indignant at being ordered around, annoyance at not being given any more attention or consideration than the hands around her.

Nesta had swooned when she met Cassian - swooned, like a child, like a girl who had never in her days seen a man so handsome. It wasn’t until weeks later and conversations with Elain that she realized she’d met her soulmate, and that the force of his emotions, of his own realization of the same fact, had quite literally bowled her over.

Whether he shared her emotions was a question she hadn’t quite brought herself to ask. How it worked, whether he was intentionally making her feel his every impulse or if he was unaware that he was drowning her in the ocean of his emotions; they were questions she hadn’t allowed herself to contemplate. There were many things about being fae that Nesta remained clueless about, partially from a willful ignorance. She had never tried to project her own sensations onto him, never experimented on a lonely evening by her fire or with the tip of a blade pressed into her palm. Never asked Feyre or Elain what it was, to know someone else more completely than you knew yourself.

Knowing meant it was real. Knowing that he understood everything she felt, since being human and then Made and then this long, dark spiral… 

Nesta didn’t feel fear around Cassian. She felt shame.

Nesta reached back, adjusting the tight braid her hair had been tamed into, and then strode towards Cassian. “We’ve been waiting.”

Cassian grunted in acknowledgement without looking at her. He gave orders with glances and small gestures, the men around him eager to please. 

But Nesta needed words. She was too full of emotion, too tired of trying to interpret the tangle and separate her own feelings from his. This morning, before leaving, she felt a knot of apprehension in her stomach. Who it belonged to didn’t matter. Not when she knew that Cassian wouldn’t have chosen this assignment any more than she would have chosen to be his charge. The feeling was perhaps magnified given their mutual dislike. 

“We ride when the sun breaks the horizon,” he called out to the men. Not to her. It was assumed that she would obey what orders he handed out. 

Nesta brushed away the twinge of guilt she felt. The thing about sharing the emotions of her soulmate - it didn’t matter what she felt, if she didn’t know why it was happening. Perhaps Cassian felt guilt at making his men wake so early for her sake, or for the horses, for carrying their burden. Who knew what that man might take on as his responsibility. 

Nesta, for her part, took on none of it. Or so she told herself.

Back before she had been Made, Feyre had just assumed that Nesta was being her usual, abrasive self. Snapping at Cassian, at Rhys, it came naturally. Why would anyone think any differently of her? Why would Feyre ever think her sister was good enough to be mated to a fae she admired nearly as much as her own mate and husband?

Elain knew that something was wrong, but had kept quiet at first. But the quiet, knowing looks became too much for Nesta, and eventually she had alienated the last person on her side, her final confidante and sister. Nesta assumed that Elain had figured it out, and had found herself outside her sister’s bedroom door more nights than she could count. But her hand always fell to her side before she knocked, and she never asked the questions she needed to.

Nesta was helped into a saddle and then shook her head to dislodged a strand of hair that covered her face. Cassian nodded to her, wordless, and she used her spurs to urge her horse on. The indignity of having to wear pants to ride her horse was briefly tempered by the ease with which she rode. Nesta accepted the comfort and let her horse follow the others, to an Illyrian camp to which she had been sent.

Out of Feyre’s sight, out of the mind of the leading family of the Night Court.

Behind the quiet clacking of horses’ hooves, Nesta let her thoughts wander. Elain had begun acting oddly after they were Made. Then again, a lot about their lives became odd. When Elain had explained that she could feel Lucien’s emotions and sometimes his physical sensations, Nesta had been appalled. She’d asked Feyre if there were a way to sever the connection, and Feyre had laughed. Laughed. As if being attached to someone in such a way wasn’t weakness. It was a forced intimacy that kept Nesta awake, trying to construct walls in her mind.

And the thing that Nesta never let herself think about crept its way into her thoughts. The longing she felt when Cassian was nearby, the aching desire to fall into his arms - or his desire for her to fall into his, it was all confusion and mess. Even the drawing rooms amongst the wealthy humans she’d known were less likely to contain traps threatening to undo her carefully crafted facade. 

Nesta had known that Cassian was approaching that morning before he had announced himself. She had felt the familiar blend of anticipation and hope, a readiness to be tender that was as foreign to her as her new body. And later, she felt that hope dim, sputter out into an even more familiar disappointment. 

Digging her spurs into the side of her horse, Nesta rode ahead, closing her eyes and focusing on the feel of the wind against her face.

*****

By the time they reached the Illyrian camps, the sun was loosing its rays on the opposite horizon. They had passed the entire day traveling, stopping only to eat and care for the horses. Now that they were at the camps, Nesta felt her anxiety increasing. Her heart beat faster and her thoughts circled and she found herself wanting an anchor, someone to remind her to breathe.

While the men hurried around her in a rehearsed concert of work and obedience, Nesta slid from her saddle. Cassian was at her side in a moment, taking the reins from her and unbuckling her bags.

“I can do that,” she said, her voice breathy as if she were the one who had exerted herself on the journey. 

Cassian set her bags on the ground and faced her. “Nesta,” Cassian said softly. He placed a gentle hand on her elbow. “Look at me.”

She did so, though not dutifully. Nesta narrowed her eyes at Cassian, expecting to be met with the same impatience she felt, but his warm brown eyes invited her to relax. To breathe. Despite her protests, Nesta grasped Cassian’s other arm, linking them. 

“In,” he said. She closed her mouth and took in a breath, slowly, through her nose. “And out.”

Minutes passed. Cassian trained his eyes on Nesta. Her blood calmed. The suffocating feeling dissipated. 

“Better?’

Nesta nodded, took a step away from Cassian. Whether she had calmed because he had forced it on her or he had allowed her to find equilibrium on her own, it didn’t matter. She was grateful, for just a moment, that someone had seen her amongst the crowd and bustle of the camp.

A tall, bearded man stalked towards them, his arms crossed. He had eyes only for Nesta, and they were the type to appraise value. Let him try, she thought, to see what use he could make of her. 

“Devlon,” Cassian said, trying to avert the Illyrian’s attention away from Nesta.

In response, Devlon spit a wad of some tobacco onto the ground inches from Nesta’s boots. “So, you’re the girl who’s been sent to spy on us for her master."

Nesta looked him up and down, starting at his feet and slowly dragging her gaze upward, buying herself time to return to form. “You may call me Miss Archeron. And your armor is awfully clean, given the surroundings,” she remarked. “Haven’t been down in the muck lately, have you?”

Devlon bristled at the implication of laziness. “You’ll find that standards are quite stringent here. Including those regarding personal hygiene.” He looked at the mud on her boots, the fraying edges of the cloak she had thrown on that morning, the sweat that had made tracks on her skin. “Perhaps you could use a lesson.”

A shock of disappointment and frustration went through Nesta and she nearly pressed the bridge of her nose until she realized it was coming from Cassian. Apparently, the two Illyrians were not the best of friends.

“Devlon, meet Nesta. Miss Archeron.” Cassian threw her a glance. “Nesta is staying here for a while. I trust you’ve made her accommodations ready.”

Devlon turned to Cassian, leaving Nesta with a parting sneer of dismissal. “Yeah, we’ve got something for the princess. Probably won’t be what she’s used to, coming from Velaris.” Devlon said the name of the capitol city with more disdain than she was used to hearing from fae, which suited her just fine. “I’ll show you to your quarters, when you’re ready.”

Grabbing Devlon’s arm to stop him from leaving, Nesta asked, “Do you have any wine you could spare?” She avoided Cassian’s gaze and the pit in her stomach that felt shame at having asked, tried to contain it within herself. 

He nodded at her. “I’ll bring it when I come back.”

“Nesta,” Cassian began, then closed his mouth. She could see the struggle on his face, understood what he wanted to say and what he thought of her before she looked inside to find it.

The shame, the discomfort. Nesta had enough of it for herself. And if she had to keep feeling every time Cassian was upset with her mixed with each time he wanted her, it was going to be a very long few months.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I keep starting long WIPs before finishing others. I have nothing to say for myself.


End file.
